Improved skating-floor



tml Staten sgg/MTW' WILLIAM S. NELSON, OF ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.

Letters Patent No. 86,031, dated .Tamm/ry 19, 1869.

IMPROVED SKATING-FLOOR.

The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and making part of the same.

To all whom 'it ma/y concern:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM S. NELSON, of St. Louis, in the county of St. Louis, and State of Missouri, have invented a new and improved Skating- Floo'r; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, which will enable others. skilled in the art to make and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specication, in which- Figure l is a plan view of my invention.

Figure 2 is a section of the same, through the line x x, g. l.

Similar letters of reference indicate like parts.

The object of this invention is to provide a surface or floor suitable for skating upon with common runnerskates, and which is designed to'be laid in public halls, rinks, parks, and private rooms, for the purpose of skating upon.

It consists, in general terms, in forming a door of a number of billets or blocks of soft wood fitted together with the grain-ends up, which latter are planed smooth, and treated or prepared7 by any suitable materials, to confer on the door, thus formed, a tough, slippery, and slightly-yielding surface, suitable for skating upon.

In practice, I usually use well-seasoned blocks of wnite pine or cedar, from two to four inches in length, with their sides and one end planed smoothly.

'Before putting these downto form a door, they are placed, with their planed ends down, in a shallow tank, or vat, containing a strong solution of potash, which soaks into the immersed ends, and gives to them a tough, yielding surface.

After remaining in the potash-solution for a few hours, the blocks are taken outand placed in a second shallow vat containing a melted mixture of tallow and beeswax, and suered to remain there'until the pores of thewood are well lled, which usually requires several hours.

They are then removed, and placed in a warm room until the tallow and beeswax are all dried in.

, The blocks, thus, prepared, are then laid, with their planed ends up, on a smooth oor-of planks, being fastened down in any'suitable manner.

In fastening them, I generally bore a central hole into the end of each block, from a third to a quarter of its length, from the upper end, and drive a n'ail in' and again treated with two or three coats of the folv lowing composition:

One part of beeswax; ten parts of tallow two parts of pulverized soapstone; one part of Castile soap.

I heat these ingredients together, and apply with a brush while hot. I then rub the surface with hot irons, until the latter composition disappears in the grain of the wood.

I then sift over the surface pulverized soapstone, and rub it in with a block of soft wood, which operaf tion leaves the surface smooth and bright.

The mixture of beeswax and tallow, used after the potash-solution, is in the proportion of one pound of beeswax to nine-tenths of a pound of tallow.

Having thus described my invention,

I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent- A skating-floor, composed of wooden blocks joined together, with the grain-ends upward, and made slippery, in the manner herein shown and described.

WM. S. `NELSON.

Witnesses:

DANIEL W. VAN HEUTER, H. W. LEFFINGWELL. 

